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Feyre stepped forward, like she might betray that ancient promise of autonomy within these walls, and Nesta tried to grab her shoulder. Her arm wouldn’t work, so she used the other one. Found her fingers filthy and coated in her own blood.

“Let’s go,” she said hoarsely, gently to Feyre. “Nyx needs you.”

“Bryaxis went after my son.” Feyre’s words shook as much as her body. Her blue-gray eyes were wide—so wide. Like she couldn’t shake the terror. Like it still ran rampant through her soul.

Clotho’s paper revealed no more. The conversation was over.

With a final, withering glare, Feyre stalked for the stairs, power rippling in her wake. Nesta lingered a beat longer. Clotho stood so still, so silent.

“Please be careful,” Nesta whispered. But the High Priestess just turned on her heel, pale robes swirling, and strode inside her domain.

The library doors shut with a resounding groan. It occurred to Nesta that she’d never seen those doors closed. Not once.

But as she followed after her sister, metal locks clicked into place.

CHAPTER

17

Feyre

Bryaxis had returned. Only Clotho’s ribbon had kept Rhys and me tethered to Nyx while blinded by our own nightmares. Would I have dropped him otherwise? Would I have been unaware that he’d tumbled from my grasp—and been lost in my own terrors while Bryaxis fed upon him?

I supposed I should be grateful for Clotho, though she hadn’t chosen to give it to us specifically to protect our son and couldn’t have ever guessed we’d need the ribbon for such a purpose. But she had chosen to allow Bryaxis back into the House of Wind. To harbor her.

I was High Lady of every single inch of this territory except for that library. My power ended at those doors. But I’d realized today I didn’t care, truly didn’t care, about limits or boundaries or even right or wrong where my son’s safety was concerned.

But Bryaxis would remain—for now. First, I needed to speak to Rhys, needed to piece myself back together.

The simmering rage, the unending echo of fear focused me. Helped me to remember that I had people other than myself to attend to. That I could not sink into the urge to wallow or withdraw or tear that damned mountain down stone by stone until there was no library left, no lines where my power ended, simply me and Bryaxis and the death I’d bestow upon her.

Her. Bryaxis was female, apparently. It didn’t make a lick of difference.

Nyx, at least, was unharmed. It was only my motherly instincts demanding that I confirm he was all right that had turned me from those library doors, from shoving my way past Clotho.

I’d found him and Rhys at the river house. Nyx was unsmiling but calm. Rhys, however, wore a hollowed-out expression, splatters of vomit still coating his clothes.

Madja had arrived, and I’d nearly sobbed when she’d finished her thorough examination of Nyx and declared that he was fine, mentally and physically. What he needed, she said, was a good nap—to keep to his schedule. That, at least, I could offer my son. So I fed him, stroking his head over and over, fighting to keep my tears at bay as I gazed into his beautiful face, and sang him the sweetest lullaby I knew. Rhys stood beside my chair the entire time. He left before I laid Nyx in his cradle, and when I emerged into our bedroom, my mate was gone. Presumably to carry out the duties required of both of us—ensuring the city was secure, our citizens safe, our friends and family intact.

The thought propelled me from my room as well, remembering once again that I hadn’t been the only one in that temple suffering under the weight of Bryaxis’s visions.

A chill had crept over the garden, yet Elain did not seem to notice it—nor my approach—as I strode past the wilting flower beds still clinging to scraps of color. My sister remained in her gown from earlier, long-sleeved but certainly not warm enough against the autumn weather.

I understood, though. That numbness, so intense that a crisp afternoon became secondary, body and mind as distant as the stars.

In terrible silence, Elain snipped off a still-perfect rose near the base of its stalk, tossing it into the beginnings of a pile in a wicker basket at her feet. The last blooms before winter.

I cleared my throat. “Are those for dinner tonight?” My voice was still scratchy from screaming.

Elain looked over her slim shoulder, no surprise at my sudden arrival. Her brown eyes were as haunted and bleak as I felt. “You removed all the dining room decorations from earlier.” The words were thin. Barely more than a whisper.

“They felt inappropriate after this morning.” I hadn’t wanted to see a single one of them upon returning. A wish, and the magic that ran our home had made them disappear. Perhaps Rhys had gone to the temple to do the same; to repair any damage from Bryaxis.

Elain returned to the tangles of rosebushes. She clipped away withered brown snarls of thorns, tossing them aside until she found another bloom clinging to life, then snipped that one, too. Twin piles grew at her feet: one of dead things, the other of delicate life. One hideous and sharp, the other soft and gentle. My sister said with that awful emptiness, “Well, I thought you might want something on the table.”

I surveyed the dying garden, so close to its winter sleep. Elain had already veiled some of the hedges in burlap to protect against the frost. “I don’t want any flowers,” I admitted reluctantly.

Elain clipped the rose stem anyway. “They’ll rot away to nothing out here. Might as well use them.”